Joe

“Georgia. Human rights groups launched investigations into Russia’s reports of pitiless atrocities. It was fake news, but it took time to prove its falsity, and while the fact-checkers tried to disprove one story, the Kremlin put out two more. Russia proved that it could use television and the internet as weapons, launching barrages of disinformation and demonization—aiming, as one analyst put it, to “dismiss the critic, distort the facts, distract from the main issue, and dismay the audience.”
― Tim Weiner, The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020

“One of the great ironies of how democracies die is that the very defense of democracy is often used as a pretext for its subversion. Would-be autocrats often use economic crises, natural disasters, and especially security threats—wars, armed insurgencies, or terrorist attacks—to justify antidemocratic measures.”
― Steven Levitsky, How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future

“Tyrants tell stories only about themselves because history for them begins and ends with their own insatiable appetites.”
― Jamie Raskin, Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy

“If a person can grow through unthinkable trauma and loss, perhaps a nation may, too.”
― Jamie Raskin, Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy